Following the breakout success of When I Was Born For the Seventh Time and especially “Brimful of Asha”, Cornershop went on hiatus. Tijinder Singh and Ben Ayres released a disco album as Clinton before returning to the studio for their fourth album, four years after their third.
The album itself is breathtakingly ambitious, hopping between disparate genres and styles too quickly to be pinned down. There’s soul, funk (“Heavy Soup”), disco (“Music Plus 1”), reggae (“Motion the 11”), plunderphonics (“The London Radar”), rock (“Lessons Learned From Rocky I to Rocky III”), 00s-dance (“Slip the Drummer One”), a 14-minute sprawling psychedelic sitar song (“Spectral Mornings”), and even a fake Indian radio advert (“Sounds Super Recordings”).
As a sample on “The London Radar” says, “you won’t find everything that you do here easy”, but Handcream for a Generation is an exuberant delight that rewards the dedicated listener.